1 Peter 1:23
You have been born anew, not of perishable but
of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.
Born anew, born again, born from above, born in the
Spirit, I am sure there are others. A
central metaphor of the Christian church is this second time around thing. Jesus is the second Adam. Why?
Because the first Adam did not quite work out the way God set things
up. I was going to say that Adam did not
work out exactly as God had intended, but this is God we are talking
about. How can something NOT work out
the way God planned?
So the plan was then for Jesus to come all along. What an interesting plan. God set in motion the creation of humanity
with the fall of humanity already factored into a long game that involved God’s
own incarnate presence (that means present in human flesh) in Jesus Christ, the
Second Person of the Trinity. So the
point of Genesis 1 is not the Fall of Humanity.
The point of Genesis 1 is John 1, where the Creation
is repeated, but with Jesus integrated into the process.
Now, this ‘born anew’ thing connects to a metaphor of
death, sorry, reality of death. Because
Jesus died, on the cross, and was born again-born anew-on Easter morning.
But for Peter, this is not the center of the work that
Jesus has done among us. Because it
follows on to the previous sentence, which talks all about that purifying of
the soul and obedience to God and such.
All of that was for a genuine mutual love to exist between the
believers. It was an emulation of the
love God has for us.
Being born anew, that is a next consequence of
obedience, something more that God gives us.
This now speaks of our individual relationships to God. It comes after the community relationship to
God, a relationship marked by love.
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